


Decorations

by wrote_and_writ



Series: Random Fandom Twelve Days of Stories: Nice Series [3]
Category: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe - Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-17 12:15:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16974423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrote_and_writ/pseuds/wrote_and_writ
Summary: Day 3 of Random Fandom Fic-Mas: Decorations





	Decorations

Decoration

It was stupid. Such a small thing when he had so much to be grateful for, but Ari felt his heart break when he took the box down. The paper poinsettia wreath he’d made for his mother when he was seven, the wreath he’d carefully packed away when he moved to San Francisco with Dante, something from home when he was far from his family for the first Christmas ever, was now a pile of shredded paper. Mice had gotten into the box of Christmas decorations he brought from Texas. The paper mache stars, the ojo de dios that had belonged to his grandmother -- destroyed. Only the tin angel meant for the top of the tree remained damaged.

He sat on the floor, holding an angel from the nativity set, the angel whose face had been gnawed half off, and let the tears fall. He sat long after the sun set and the house went dark, holding the ruined angel and crying. Everything he’d bottled up leading to the move poured out of him. 

“Ari, baby, you home?” Dante turned on the living room lights, and Ari couldn’t bring himself to respond. “Ari, what’s wrong?” Dante sat beside him. “Oh, shit.”

He took the angel from Ari and turned it over in his hands. 

Ari took the tin angel from the pile. “This is all that’s left.”

Dante put his arms around Ari’s shoulders and hugged him close. “I’m so sorry, mi amor.” He kissed Ari’s shoulder.

“It’s fine. It’s just things.” He moved to get up, but Dante held him down. 

“It’s not just things.”

“It is, Dante. Just paper.” Ari shrugged out of Dante’s embrace. “I’m going to bed.”

Dante let him go upstairs. Ari collapsed into bed, barely pausing to remove his shoes. The weight of grief held him down, took his breath until he passed out, exhausted and empty.

Ari slept long past sunrise the next morning. When he pried himself from sleep, he looked to Dante’s side of the bed. The sheets were still pulled up. Dante hadn’t come to bed. Ari smelled coffee, though, so he was home. 

Ari couldn’t quite face the wreckage that waited in the living room. He took a long, hot shower even as the temperatures crested 70. He finally wandered downstairs an hour after waking. Dante was sitting on the couch with a mug of coffee and the newspaper.

“Ari, baby, you sleep okay?”

Ari nodded and sat down beside Dante. He let his hand rest on Dante’s thigh and his head against Dante’s shoulder.

Dante reached over to the end table and handed Ari a small package, hastily wrapped in tissue paper. 

“What’s this?”

“Open it,” Dante said, kissing Ari’s cheek. 

Ari peeled the paper away. The faceless angel lay in his palm, faceless no more. The repairs were obvious, fresh, but they were well done.

“What did you do?”

Dante gestured to the coffee table. The entire nativity was set up, each piece repaired as much as possible. “I couldn’t save the poinsettias or the ojo. We’ll have to make more, start our own traditions. But I couldn’t let us start from nothing.”

“Dante.” Ari felt the tears rise again, but this time, his heart was light as a balloon. “Love, I, I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Your eyes say it all, mi amor.”


End file.
